Illustrations of history

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This magazine is for sharing artwork of historical events, places, personages, etc. Scale models and the like also welcome!

Generally speaking, actual photos of a historical item should go to [email protected]

Photos of ruins should go to [email protected]

Photos of the past should go to [email protected]

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PugJesus

Roman auxiliaries being led into battle (lemmy.world)

submitted 2 months ago by PugJesus to c/historyillustrations

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

If you're referring to their less-than-slender look, that's because armor is rather unflattering.

First there's a layer of padding, called the subarmalis, basically the same as a medieval gambeson. Thick padded linen or leather that adds quite a bit of girth.

Then a lorica hamata/chainmail over the top, but to make that not dangle off of your shoulder, you strap it tight around the waist with a belt. Doing that and being to move around means you have to sort of let the top dangle over the belt a little.

That creates a very unflattering potbelly look, so you don't see it a lot in media, but that IS how it works best